Tag Archives: failure vs success

from left to right Me,Scott and Phill, Graham was hiding as he dies instantly if I photo gets taken of him!

I turned 26 on the 12th of November, and usually when you have a birthday thats something in your 20’s, you go ‘well another year’. I mean, when your a teenager, you only care about how many present you get, to the point where you go ‘the fuckers only got me 80 presents as opposed to 81 last year’ and start devising how you kill your parents, with a the biggest fork you can find or something just as ridiculous. maybe death by evil stare?

the reason I say this is, to bring this to my recent birthday, it had me reflecting far more than I ever have. The honest thing is, I really am finding myself going, ‘fuck I’m not even close to being married by the time I’m 30 as I’m not even seeing anyone and I’m another year closer to that’ which made me realise that turning 26 has turned me into thinking like a moody 16 year old girl. But as some will say, what else is new. But seriously, you kinda do take stock and realise what it is that you have or haven’t done, and what you’d like to accomplish as you get older or what you’d like to be thinking the next birthday you have. Ofcourse, there’s things I want to do I haven’t, I am scarily and outrageously ambitious, so I am always working on something in order to reach something I want to do, but I was hit with several positive feelings (which is unlike me) . Every penny of money that I have earned since university has been through hard work and making myself viable enough to be paid for doing something I like. and although i freely admit I’ve not earned a huge amount , I’ve gotten by for less hours than if I was working for shit money on a full time schedule in a job I would hate. I’m proud of that and feel I should be cos I always give myself a hard time thinking what I am doing is worthwhile.

To give you an example of this, I entered university with prospects and by the time I left the world was in an economic depression. It wasnt cos I was back in the world, which is depressing enough, but I suddenly,along with millions of others, got hit with the realisation that we no longer had as many if any options after leaving higher education. I tried getting into BBC, which took time as its a long process, and ended up nearly getting it, but ultimately was entering an industry that started already being hard to get into, that was now even harder. Most likely if you had a job now, you’ll be keeping it as they is nowhere to go as everyone else is quite rightly doing exactly the same thing in feeling lucky just being where they are. so if your trying to get on the ladder, you begin to realise that the ladder is full, or has moved somewhere else onto an entirely different estate.

So my solution was to make my own fortunes. I created and ran a radio station for the YMCA which lead to being paid for teaching radio and getting the opportunity to become a youth worker as a biproduct of that. Baring in mind I worked for free for months, running 10 shows a week, including my own, and looking at trying to get grant money in order to continue to do what we wanted, I learned ultimately something I use everyday in running this project. So when I say everything I’ve earned is through hard work, it is literally true, also it is true when I say that I created a job for myself. The reality of the situation though is I, like many others of my generation, have no other choice in the matter. But it gives the opportunity to be able to try and do something that interests and appeals, and thats what Geek Apocalypse is, and why it means a lot to me.

The birthday special reveals an interesting behind the scenes aspect of it, as in the people who everyday help me in maintaining the idea and are willing to help me out for the trade off of simply being best friends. Some of which I have known 15-20 years. Graham is a great website designer and designed the yradio and Geek Apocalypse site to what I asked it to be, Phill has helped us with the more technical wordpress problems we have faced, and scott designed the logo and youtube intro. So in their own unique ways they have supported me throughout the whole project, even when it was just a tiny spec of an idea around a year or so ago. So I owe them hugely for that and that why this podcast will be uniquely…erm unique!

so what will I want to be saying next birthday? I suppose That I kept telling the truth, and I kept doing things that I really care about, which in a weird sense, is a pretty simple idea and yet is hard to achieve. Bloody fun though!

I realise as I watch things recovering from my accident last week that I really need the connection of people. I have not seen any friends in a week and it made me realise how important it is to have some sort of social network to be able to talk to. I don’t mean the, lets like a post or comment on things and tweet how adorable the cats being, I mean genuine real human interaction.

I’ve been watching, reading an awful lot about the human mind, how complex it is and how little we know. And it got me thinking about how we actually think and process everyday life. What fascinates me is the idea of risk, alot of people I know are terrified of risk because they can not predict the outcome. To me thats missing the point? surely not knowing is the best part about trying to get to know someone or trying to do something you really care about. Also we takes risks everyday, saying hello to a complete stranger is a social risk, crossing the road everyday is a risk, leaving a secure job for something better is a risk, but without risk as far as I can see there is very little reward. Or rather their is very little to be personally satisfied about.

This leads me to think about misery. I see so many people being self defeating about life. It wont work out, or I’m not worth anything or I won’t be able to do what I want to. I listened to a Larry king interview where he said ‘learning is so fascinating;so saying this is it and that’s the way it is is self defeating! saying i wont like this.have you tried?’ This to me somes it up brilliantly. If you don’t try how will you know? If you don’t take risk how will you ever fail? if you don’t fail how will you make mistakes? if you dont make mistakes how will you ever learn from them?

this lead me to think about misery, if you don’t take risk, misery is all you’ve got left, Because you can easily make yourself miserable by stop trying, by stop caring, by stopping completely. its the only thing you can be certain of ‘tommorrow im going to be miserable and sit all day and do nothing’. you can do that everyday and justify it by saying you need it really easily. But what will you achieve? and thats why risk is so important, without risk, you arent able to be completely happy, to connect with someone the way you really want to. Thats why arguing, saying what you feel, being honest, is far more important than the certainty of misery.

how about ‘today I’m going to try do something about it one bit at a time?’